


Joan's Week

by hophophop



Series: Things Said & Unsaid [1]
Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-08
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2018-01-24 00:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1585052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hophophop/pseuds/hophophop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“You walk away from being a doctor, find a new way to help people? Same old Jo."</em>
</p><p>She looked around her room, the familiar spartan space she used to find soothing. Now she felt the blank walls pressing in, constricting her thoughts.<br/>Takes place between 2x20, No Lack of Void, and 2x21, The Man with the Twisted Lip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Monday

**Author's Note:**

> thanks very much to beanarie for beta and for the title.
> 
> this was supposed to be my entry to the Elementary Big Bang, but I missed that deadline by a mile. it's my 50th (!) Elementary fic posted at AO3.

It’d been years since her last Al-Anon meeting, long before she found her way to sober companion. Telling Sherlock about her father’s illness, reliving the Aaron Colville debacle, and then Alistair’s death and Sherlock’s struggle made her feel raw and vulnerable, and she hated it. She’d first gone to a meeting in college when her father was fighting his care and her anxiety that she might become schizophrenic herself started interfering with her studies. It wasn’t a perfect fit, feeling like she had to pretend he was an alcoholic or telling the truth and having to explain how it was similar, but her guilt and fear and shame had companions there she couldn’t find anywhere else. She needed that reminder again, how to let go of what was harming her and keep what she could. Today she sat at the back, didn’t share, and left awash with old memories. 

There were more options now than when she was young; Nar-Anon, other family & friends support groups, her own therapist. If this were going to be more than a one-time boost, she might consider finding a better fit. In another context she might even have tried talking it out with Sherlock; she had to admit he’d done well enough by her with the guilt she wore like armor. But Alistair and addiction were in the way this time, and Sherlock’s own struggles with both meant she couldn’t share hers. She got a glimpse of the chasm between them when his ever vigilant guard slipped and he asked if she could imagine 30-years sober. She felt the veil descend the moment he uttered the words. They both knew: No, she couldn’t truly share his admiration and awe, nor that so very particular loss. 

Most of the people who spoke at this meeting talked about having to teach themselves how to forgive parents who lacked the capacity to model anything like forgiveness, or were parents struggling to forgive without forgetting in order to stop enabling their own children’s habits. Sherlock had never said as much, but it was clear to her he’d found a father-figure in Alistair, and now he was gone, toppled pedestal behind him. She’d never discount Sherlock’s distress over the role addiction played, but she hoped he’d find his way to forgiving Alistair for not being a perfect parent. She felt close to tears listening to some of the young women in the room. Two in particular, both daughters of alcoholics who’d started drinking before they were born, spoke of feeling responsible for what their fathers did while drunk. She couldn’t help thinking, this is just how it is. This is how it is going to be.


	2. Tuesday

The shelter’s manager was waiting for her, and Joan had barely greeted the folks at the front desk before Chioma slid a couple of folders across the counter and nudged them under her palm. “Just a quick glance, I don’t want another chickenpox outbreak and that one on top might be drug-seeking, I know, I know it’s just your unofficial impression, you’re not licensed to practice.” She hurried away, calling “Thanks again Joan!” over her shoulder. She picked up the files and sat on the battered green couch in the back of the office to take a look. 

For almost two years, her stomach flinched as if waiting for a punch every time someone asked her medical opinion at the shelter. She shouldn’t be doing it at all anymore, not without a license, and the staff were always apologetic but kept right on asking, out of habit and desperation. She couldn’t blame them, support and services cut to the bone year after year. She told herself it was just triage. It got a bit better once she could do something else, and addiction counseling was as necessary as doctoring; more so, some days. 

Now that it was well over a year since she’d done sobriety work professionally, she wasn’t sure what to think about what she offered to the shelter. She let the folders drop to her lap and pondered. The thought of bringing detective work here made her most uncomfortable, unless it was to help a resident, as she had for those captive men. The little she could do for addicts was just that: the little she could do. Medical advice was back to being her most valuable skill here, and somewhere along the way her anxiety about that had shifted. It still didn’t feel right, but not for the old reasons it used to be wrong. And of course with that thought, she felt guilty for not feeling so guilty. 

Despite her discomfort, she still thought it was the best chance she had to reach her father. She couldn’t help him directly, either because he wasn’t coming in or because he’d have none of it, but she hoped by offering care to the folks she met here, it might wind its way by a more circuitous route to him, somehow.


	3. Wednesday

After an hour of berating herself for feeling bad for no reason and another hour of temporizing, she finally dialed the number and then worried about whether or not to leave a message if she got his voicemail. She was almost relieved when Alfredo picked up after the third ring. “Hey Joan.” 

“Hi.” She cleared her throat, wishing she hadn’t called. “Sorry to bother you, but any chance you have some free time this week?” 

“Sure, what’s up?” 

She bit back another automatic apology. “Uh... I kinda need someone to tell me things I already know.” She winced, scrunching up her face in embarrassment. 

The line was quiet, and then his soft laugh came through. “Car alarm distracting you again? You just need regular practice to stay on top of that—” 

“No, no.” She noticed her right thumb compulsively rubbing her forefinger, and pressed her hand flat on the bedspread. “It’s not lock picking. Or not that kind, anyway.” 

“Ah.” 

“Yeah. But this is me. About me, I mean. Not… When I was a sober companion, I had professional outlets, colleagues…. When things got to me. But I’m on my own now.” 

“No, you’re not. Is the phone okay, or do you want to meet?” 

She looked around her room, the familiar spartan space she used to find soothing. Now she felt the blank walls pressing in, constricting her thoughts. “I need to get out of here to someplace that’s not a crime scene, and I’d rather not walk and talk. I can come to you. Any time — it’s not an emergency or anything.” 

“How about today? Dorian’s at 3?” 

“Perfect. Thanks, Alfredo.” 

“No problem.” 

* 

She felt better after she bought him a cup of coffee and listened to him say what she’d been telling herself for days. 

She leaned back in the booth with her arms stretched out to rest on the table, slowly turning her coffee cup around and around on its saucer. “Maybe this is more of a pay-it-forward situation, but if I can ever…” 

“It’s okay. Plenty of people have helped me.” He nodded thanks to the waitress coming by to refill their cups. “Actually, there is something I’ve wanted to pick your brain about.” 

“Please!” 

“I’ve already done the big career switch once, life-o-crime to security specialist, and that’s fine, it’s good money, and I’m good at it. But it’s not….” He unzipped his blue vest and shrugged it off, carefully folding it in half and thirds as he continued. “There’s nothing wrong with it, you know, and it doesn’t seem right to question, when I know so many folks who are struggling. But I’ve been thinking about doing more with the sponsor stuff. Addiction counseling, maybe, or prevention? Like if I could get to the kids like I was, before….” He abruptly dropped the vest on the seat next to him and stretched his left arm out to rest along the back of the booth. “Or is that still too much like sticking to what I know? I wonder, is there something else, something I’ve never even imagined? Should I be looking for a bigger step?” 

“Like the leap from sober companion to consulting detective?” A wry smile. 

“Yeah. Like that.” 

She shook her head slowly. “I still can’t tell you how that happened. I don’t know if it works like that. But it’s not like trying something else means you have to stay with it forever. You can go back. Or try another something else.” 

“You don’t have regrets?” 

It took a moment for the full weight of his question to sink in, and she burst out in a hard laugh. “Oh god, Alfredo, so many.” She wiped the surprise tears from her eyes. “I don’t know how to avoid that, but you just go ahead anyway. Find new things to regret, maybe? Lighter things.” A longer pause, staring into her empty cup, tracing the forest green line around the outer rim. “The old regrets have dropped away or rest easier, and the new ones don’t get in my way so much. Except when I let them,” and she nodded acknowledgement to him again. “Or maybe I’m just stronger now.” 

“That’s the trick, isn’t it. Figuring out how to carry the load instead of getting crushed by it.” 

“And finding help along the way.” She raised her cup, and he lifted his to tap it in return.


	4. Thursday

The overlapping paper trails between the two suspects were fascinating once she figured out how to interpret the accounting codes they’d used to obscure their illicit business. It was one of the things she loved best about the work, these always unexpected puzzles that grabbed her whole attention as she excavated their secrets and figured out how to put them back together again. Sherlock had gone off with Marcus to interview some of the business owners caught in the scam. She usually had no trouble working side by side with him, but she enjoyed the quiet hours alone today completely absorbed in the flow of the task. 

She didn’t know how long she’d been at the conference table that afternoon when the door opened. “Jeez, are you moonlighting as an accountant now? You can do my taxes if you want.” 

“Hey Marcu— Ow!” Her hand shot up to clamp the side of her neck now in spasm. 

“Oh, sorry. Never mind, I’ll go to HR Block like I always do.” He winced in sympathy as she cringed around her right shoulder in pain. “You want some ice?” 

“Ah, no. No taxes and no ice. Heat’s actually better for a cramp like this. I used to do this to myself all the time in med school. I’ll give it a few minutes and head home if it doesn’t ease up.” 

“Lucia might have something. She has everything. Just a minute.” He turned back and she watched him cross to the office manager’s desk outside Gregson’s office. 

There’d been a series of different women working at that desk in the time Joan had been coming to the station, but Lucia had started six months ago and seemed to be staying. Joan had heard her speaking English, Spanish, and Tagalog with equal ease, and she envied her facility with languages. She’d brushed it off when Joan had asked how many she spoke. “It’s just what I was raised with, you know? I took latin in high school, and I was terrible at it.” 

“Why latin?” 

“I like knowing how things start, and old austronesian wasn’t offered at my high school.” 

Joan smiled at the memory and renewed her resolution to suggest they have lunch some time. There was rarely time for more than a greeting, between whatever clock was running on the investigation that brought her to the station and Lucia’s endless stream of projects and interruptions. It had been a month since their last chat when Lucia came into the conference room holding a flat narrow box, Marcus trailing behind her. 

“There’s always somebody nursing an injury around here. And don’t let them fool you with tales of bravado on the street—“ she shook her finger accusingly at Marcus but her eyes were kind, and he just shook his head. “Probably half of them are ergonomic, bad chairs and hours staring at computer screens. You know how it is. Obviously.” She finished pulling a heating pad from the battered box, plugged it into an extension cord and the cord into the wall. “Here you go.” She carefully draped the pad around Joan’s shoulders like a shawl, and Joan eased back in her chair as the heat slowly increased and soothed the tight grip of muscle where her shoulder met her neck. 

“Oh, that’s good, Lucia, thank you.” 

Lucia rested her hand a moment on Joan’s good shoulder. “Try to remember to stretch next time or I’ll pull the fire alarm to make you take a break. My brothers will tell you it’s not an idle threat, although I’ll deny it in court.” 

“Lucia!” His grin betrayed his shocked tone. 

“You don’t have a sister, Marcus Bell; you have no idea what we’re capable of.” She winked at Joan with a nod and left the conference room, and Marcus looked back and forth between the two women as if unsure it was safe to turn his back on them. Joan lifted her chin in mock seriousness. “It’s true. You all have no idea.”


	5. Friday

Sherlock had gone out by himself, after she refused to be roused at 4:30 to observe opossums and raccoons returning to their lairs in an abandoned building two blocks away. “I’ve cracked more than one case through my familiarity with the tracks and habits of our nonhuman urban brethren, Watson. We might even spot a skunk.” His disapproving scowl was no match for her reluctance to move farther than to let her retort fly and roll to face away from him and the glare of the hallway light.

Although his rousing her for the day's adventure was a common enough occurrence, it irked more than usual this morning. If she’d been even semi-conscious she might have recognized the symptom and saved herself a load of laundry. Sherlock should be thankful he hadn’t offered his own assessment of her mood beyond raised eyebrows and a swift retreat when her slipper smacked the wall next to his head. He’d either figured out that regularity was not all that regular in the menstrual cycles of people in their forties — not that she’d ever experienced clockwork precision when she wasn’t on the pill — or had grown bored with her physiology as a deductive exercise. Or he was full of shit the time he made a crack about it. Well, no need to pick just one of those explanations.

It was almost noon when she heard the front door close and his purposeful footsteps cross the main floor as she put the clean sheets back on her bed. Her phone buzzed on the bedside chair.

_mtg w B 1245 crm scn rdy?_

_I'll be down in 10_

She drew the covers over the bed and pushed the laundry basket into the closet with one foot. The plastic scraping over the scratched floorboards sounded harsh against the bare walls, grating. For a long time, well past the original expiration date of her contract, she never gave it a thought, this empty room. She’d lived with clients longer than six weeks before; it was no big deal not to be surrounded by her things. There were definite benefits to living a pseudo-streamlined life. When she lost her own place and put her stuff in storage, she apparently packed any sentimentality she had about her things with them. It was only in the last few months that she found herself dissatisfied with her room. Unhappy with the sickly green walls, missing the artwork she’d collected once her student loans were finally paid off, annoyed by Sherlock’s intrusions. One of these things was not like the others.

“Watson!”

She rolled her eyes at his imperious tone. The impatience was simply his eagerness to investigate; he couldn’t turn it off, she knew. Most of the time she liked being swept along by it. But if she was going to be able to continue to enjoy his enthusiasm, she would need a buffer. Or a moat. She had to stop putting off committing to it, and just tell him. This was _not_ something she should feel guilty about, and she knew not doing it would only lead to regret. It needed to happen soon. Soon.


	6. Saturday

She was early for once, and felt a twinge of guilt at Emily's pleased surprise to see her already at the restaurant. Sherlock wasn't the only one who put work before everything else. At least she didn't do it _all_ the time.

*

Emily took the last bite of the cheesecake they'd shared. "I did something you're not going to like."

Joan looked up over the edge of her tea cup. "Seriously? Again? What's left, arranged marriage?"

Emily gave a rueful grin, then raised an eyebrow. "Well, that is an option I hadn't considered yet…. But no." She paused and carefully pushed at the place setting to align the handles of the knife and spoon she hadn't used. "It's the article I'm working on. Well, that I finished. It's coming out tomorrow." She took a deep breath. "About police procedure and the fourth amendment."

"Yes…?"

"And how sometimes the NYPD finds creative ways to pursue unlawful search. Like hiring private investigators and consultants to obtain information they can't get legally."

It was not the first time she'd heard that critique of her chosen profession. "Sounds like you think consultants are not much better than the criminals they catch."

"It's skirting the edge of an ends-justify-the-means abyss, Joan. And some think using those…techniques on a minor was going too far."

"'Some'? Anyone sitting at this table?" She felt the heat rise in her face, remembering how close they came to having the whole case thrown out on a technicality. And what he would almost certainly have done with his restored freedom. "Fine. You want me to justify it? The 'minor' turns eighteen next week and has been running what amounts to an organized crime syndicate out of his private school since he was twelve; he was suspected of murder by age fifteen. He's on the fast track to career criminal."

Emily leaned into the table. "And a life in prison bought by violating due process, not to mention his constitutional rights, is the best solution? The only one?"

"His next project was setting up a prostitution ring. By coercing kids in the public middle school down the street. He had a 20-page business plan drafted and was in contact with investors." She set her empty cup down on the table a little too hard. "How old is Devon?"

"Joan." Emily shook her head.

"I know there are lines, Emily. And sometimes I cross them. Does it help you if I admit I sometimes lose sleep over that? That I've had fights with Sherlock exactly like this? I still don't regret what it took to get that boy into custody. I don't know why he is the way he is; maybe someone did things to him, and this was the only way he survived. Maybe it's not his fault, on some fundamental level. That's not the point of what I do."

"Pointing out problems with the system _is_ the point of what I do."

"And also selling newspapers." Emily jerked back, and Joan put up her hand. "Low blow," she acknowledged.

"Not as low as the one before," Emily said, her voice bitter.

"But I don't put it past your bosses. Profit is the point of what _they_ do. They're not journalists; they're corporate jockeys. A story about a rich white kid stopped from abusing poor brown kids is less marketable than one about a corrupt police force. You can't tell me you've never been told not to waste time on a story you cared about because no one would read it."

"Sure, that happens. I admit it. Can't you admit there's a problem with police using loopholes to get around the checks and balances intended to control their power? With you being the one having to slip through? I know you end up in difficult situations and I know you have good intentions. The best. But corruption corrupts whether you want it to or not. What are _your_ checks and balances?"

"Jesus Emily. I left medicine because I didn't think it was safe for my patients to have me standing over them with the power of life or death. I've lain awake more nights than I've slept wrestling with the implications of what I've done and what I might do. Frankly it's a miracle I get anything done at all, with all the second-guessing going on in here." She tapped the side of her head. "I didn't make that kid that way. I didn't seek out the case. But no, I didn't stand back when I saw an opportunity to find out what was really going on. I'm tired of letting regret, or fear of regret, paralyze me."

"But Joan, it matters how you get there, how you find out what you know. I didn't steal your phone or recount your stories or ask you fake questions to quote out of turn in my article. I couldn't betray your trust to do my job."

"And I wouldn't betray yours. I do have limits, honestly. I've protected people who told me things as their sober companion. The cops I work with have blown the whistle on their own. Even Sherlock has lines he won't cross." Or won't cross again, she thought, remembering the glint of an icepick. "I don't believe the ends always justify the means, Em. But I've come to find that justice is far more important to me than doing some arbitrarily defined 'right thing.' If there are bars between me and justice, I'm going to look for a way to bend them."


	7. Sunday

When there wasn’t a pressing investigation, Sherlock usually met Randy for breakfast at 8am on Sunday mornings, and they often went to a meeting after. Sometimes Joan slept in, but most sundays she was awake to hear the front door close behind him at 7:30. She’d stretch, luxuriating in not being rushed out of bed and staring at the ceiling with idle thoughts she let slip away one after another. She was usually in the kitchen by 8, finishing the coffee if he’d left any or making a pot of tea and taking it back upstairs to her room to read for an hour, something completely unrelated to any current case. Well, except when it was. But she tried. 

It was a habit that started in medical school and continued the entire time she practiced. Her friends used to tease her for being so regimented about it, but it worked; downtime was beneficial, even when she needed to make it an appointment for it in her calendar. After Mr. Castoro— well, a lot of her good habits crumbled after that. Running came back first but for a while she had no use for imaginary stories. Eventually she started picking up novels or magazines in her clients’ homes, but she couldn’t dredge up the will to care what happened. It was only since being subsumed by the whirlwind that was working with Sherlock that she finally felt the need to carve out space that was just hers again. 

And that was her ambitious plan for the day: stretching that hour to six or eight that were just hers. She hadn’t been to the Met in ages, and the weather was pleasant enough for a meander through Central Park. She’d bring her book and maybe read for another hour in a coffee shop somewhere. She cut herself off from visualizing the entire day’s activity. Not planning a detailed itinerary ahead of time was also part of the exercise. The Al-Anon meeting and subsequent conversations with Alfredo and Emily this week had each, in entirely different ways, highlighted her dysfunctional relationship with feeling responsible to others. This urge to account for every minute in advance stemmed from her own unreasonable expectations for herself. She’d let the day unfold as it would, as much as possible. 

* 

Sherlock had texted three times, once to say he’d be going to the late afternoon meeting because Randy tormented them both with tales of Eve all through an extended breakfast; again to request she let Ms Hudson know if she minded a last-minute schedule change to clean the brownstone today instead of Tuesday, and finally to ask where she was. She’d texted “okay” to the first two (and replied to Ms Hudson) but sat with the third for fifteen minutes in one of the British Romanticism galleries at the Met, unable to decide how or whether to reply. 

The room was filled with landscapes by Constable and his contemporaries: natural and built environments with skies that implied fine if blustery weather. There were few people in the paintings: some indistinct figures in a park, a portrait of a rustic family in which none of the figures was aware of being observed through the canvas, and another of a well-to-do matron. She didn’t gaze outward, but it was clearly a formal seated portrait, and as such she obviously knew she would be seen. And that was her life in the brownstone, Joan realized. No matter how comfortable and at home she might feel there, from time to time, she always knew she was under observation. Even when Sherlock wasn’t being creepy or invasive, which honestly was not all that often (not that any amount was acceptable), nothing she did went unnoticed. It was exhausting. She really had to do something about that, soon. 

Sherlock was terse, as his texts usually were, and the tone underlying that last question was opaque to her. Was it curiosity, anxiety, ire? Where was the line between reasonable interest and possessiveness or control? If anyone else had asked, she’d simply say she was at the Met, unashamed to be enjoying the spring Sunday with a day on her own. But Sherlock wouldn’t accept that answer. She could all too easily hear him cajole, complain, or belittle it as being a waste of time, useless and distracting. And part of her would agree despite knowing he was wrong, and how crucial it was for her to balance work with other things. The effort needed to push back against his judgment (and her own) would drain her once again. In the end, she chose not to reply at all but rather meet him after the meeting and ask him about his day to counter further dissection of hers. 

And speaking of judgment, she’d only just settled down to wait the ten minutes for his meeting to conclude when Emily texted. She was steeling herself to either read it or delete when she heard someone crying in the stairwell. Any excuse not to fuel the turmoil in her own life was more than welcome. She got up to see if she could help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also fulfills Watson's Woes July Writing Challenge, [amnesty prompt: John Constable](http://watsons-woes.livejournal.com/1192747.html) with reference to the paintings in [this gallery](http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/galleries/european-paintings/808)


End file.
